Director: Dominic Brunt
Year: 2023
Country: United Kingdom
Alternate Titles: Scream of the Wolf
Genre: Werewolf
Plot:
Shooting a new horror film, the cast and crew o the shoot working overtime to finish the feature suddenly start finding themselves disappearing at the hands of a mysterious beast that the locals fear has returned forcing them to band together and find a way to stop the creature’s rampage.
Review:
There’s quite a lot to like with this one. One of the better elements of this one is the rather fun time on the movie set that constitutes a large portion of the film’s opening segments. Filled with a lot of the trials and tribulations of working on a low-budget film shoot, with grueling hours, unreasonable actors who think they’re above the kind of roles they’re performing, improper funding to pay for better props, and tyrannical producers forcing them to stay through the night to complete their work, the material here displaying this comes off incredibly well. Giving us a shot of the characters in the confines of their job on-set which plays a lot into the interactions featured here, this is a solid enough time that gets the film off to a strong start.
On top of that, the actual attacks that transpire here are generally enjoyable providing quite a lot to like. With the first encounter here taking out the late arrivals walking through the woods to the shoot location striking a fantastic idea of what to expect, the later attacks on the crew include some strikingly fun setpieces of the beast attacking clueless disbelievers until they become aware of the situation much too late to do anything about it. With the finale coming in with a fantastic piece of stalking throughout the grounds of the house and in the surrounding woods which all come off rather strongly, this lets up get some great action fueled by some solid kills and a fantastic design on the creature that is quite impressive. Overall, there’s a lot to like here with these aspects.
There are some big issues holding this one down. One of the biggest drawbacks to this one is the rather out-of-touch comical musings that take place here which aren’t funny or enjoyable. This is mostly prevalent in the second half where their light-hearted approach to the concept of the crew dying in front of them and not reacting at all to what’s going on where it comes off with a decided indifference that doesn’t match the intensity of the sequence. Instead, this gives a blithe remark about it and the decision is made to carry on like nothing happened which is a rather underwhelming feature here. As well, there are also the low-budget origins that crop up from time to time that gives themselves away at points where it’s not necessary, especially the ending twist that could’ve had more done to it, which are the main issues.
Overview: ***.5/5
A genuinely solid genre effort with a couple of detrimental factors, this comes off generally fun enough for the most part that the flaws do have an impact but don’t lower it completely. This will appeal mostly to fans of this kind of indie creature feature or fans of the genre overall, while most others out there might not enjoy this one and should heed caution.
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